


all empires, made of paper

by uglowian



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Bloodplay, Consensual Kink, Consensual Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 12:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uglowian/pseuds/uglowian
Summary: an alternate universe in which the cold war had a very different ending. kids still come up in the scene, it's just that the scene's a little more violent. and joe trohman likes the way gabe looks when he's bleeding.





	all empires, made of paper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trojie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/gifts), [heartofthesunrise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofthesunrise/gifts).



> written for heartofthesunrise, who wanted joe/gabe, and for trojie, who wanted "less high melodrama bloodplay". careful what you wish for.

It's winter in the way that feels like always-winter, except it's just the middle of February, and this is how February feels, every year. Joe wonders how he's never gotten used to it.

Outside, grey high-rises catch grey snow, and a grey sky floats above it all. He thinks of an inverted lake. Or a poem he found on the back shelves of the library, that talked about skies like lakes. Maybe that's where he got the idea. _A mine of souls._

It's cold out so he sits in the disorganized sprawl of his flat with Gabe; him, huddled in blankets on the couch, Gabe stretched out, long and lean, on the thin rug on the floor, close to the radiator. In nothing but a beater and the drab jeans he's been wearing for the better part of two days.

"I don't know how you're not cold, dude."

Gabe shrugs, flicking through TV channels. Only six. If he goes past that, there's just snow, the same as outside. "Dunno." He sets the remote down and glances at Joe over one sharp shoulder. "You can help warm me up later."

He has a bright smile, even when he's leering, like lighted glass. Joe scoffs.

"Cocky."

Gabe just shrugs and turns his attention back to the TV and leaves it at that. Joe knows Gabe's right, and Gabe knows he knows. There's no real argument to be had.

On the TV screen: the news, where an anchor sits at her clean white table, and recites the details of some tragedy in the DMZ. Raids or something. Nothing new. The camera cuts to three bodies, half-buried in snow. Blue lips, blue fingertips. Eyes closed.

_Mississippi Nation ID tags—_

Joe stops listening and spreads out on the couch, careful to keep the blankets tucked around his feet. From here, he can see the sky through the windows just above the couchback. The spiral of fat, wet snowflakes. In the summer it'll be moths, spiraling on garlic-skin wings, in search of the lights on some rickety balcony or another. He read somewhere once that moths only live for a week. One whole week, counting down from the moment they split free of their chrysalises. Mating, and kissing at stringlights with their little paper wings.

Gabe flips to a new channel. "Hey."

"Hey what?"

"C'mere."

Joe smirks a little, because he feels bitchy. "Cold already?"

"Fuck off."

"I'm not laying on the floor."

The rug rustles when Gabe worms closer. Close enough to work one hand under the blankets and find Joe's fingers with his own. He really _is_ cold to the touch, almost enough to sting. Joe curls his hand over the lobes of Gabe's chilly knuckles.

"There's not enough room on the couch," Gabe complains.

"The floor sucks."

"You're selfish."

And it's true, at least sometimes. Joe likes the blankets and he likes the couch, but he supposes he likes Gabe too. He makes a show of getting up, clutching the two quilts and huffing while he settles onto the floor. When he holds up one arm to tent the blankets, Gabe squirms close and almost knees him in the groin.

Joe hisses. "Jesus, Saporta."

But already Gabe works one arm around his waist, hugs him close. "Sorry." He says it against Joe's temple and doesn't sound sorry in the slightest.

"Whatever."

Cramped in a significantly more uncomfortable position on the floor, he curls into Gabe's body heat. He can feel the joints in the floorboards, some of the bigger gaps taped over from when he winterized the flat. Gabe's ribs lift, fall, and lift again—steady bellows while he breathes. He smells like wherever they were last night, except a day old, so more sour, and musked over with body odor. Joe noses closer.

"You smell like ass."

"It's my pheromones."

" _You're_ an ass."

Gabe doesn't argue that point, but Joe suspects it's because he already has what he wants. Which is to say: he has Joe curled close to him, one hand at the small of Gabe's back. Not going anywhere, unshowered stink or no.

Joe feels him reach for the remote again, this time to kick the volume up on the TV. Joe drowses and mostly ignores it, feeling how Gabe breathes. The impression of Gabe's mouth, warm and faintly damp, lingers on his temple.

It's only 3PM, but the sun's already going down, and he imagines that the sky behind all those clouds is turning some fragile color. Lavender, then darker purple, even though glowing gold still limns the westward horizon. In the summers, it's a pretty thing to see. Sunsets splash against the high-rises, coloring everything in. Amber and ochre, both crystalline. The windows catch the light and glitter and the look of it has a sound; someone leaning on an organ chord. Or the noise that windchimes make, like the one he's seen in the window two floors down. Little square bits of colored glass, waiting for a breeze.

But right now it's just winter.

Pipes clack in the wall while the radiator burbles to life.

"Wanna get noodles tonight?"

"Mm?"

"Trohman." Gabe pokes his ribs.

"Ah—fuck. _What_?"

"Noodles," Gabe repeats, put-upon. "I want hot soup, and something spicy."

"Sure."

"Are you sleeping?"

"I'm fucking trying."

Gabe moves again, and Joe's hand slips from the small of his back to the barely-extant slope of his waist. He's so skinny. But Joe doesn't dwell on it, at least not right now, because Gabe drapes an arm around him. His fingers curl at the back of Joe's neck. He kisses Joe's lightly tangled, unwashed hair and Joe hums because he likes it.

"Want me to wake you up in a little bit?" Gabe asks, the tips of his cold fingers brushing the the base of Joe's skull.

"You've _been_ waking me up, asshole."

"Grouchy."

But he has his mouth to Joe's hair and Joe, in turn, noses at the rasp of the five o'clock shadow down his throat and is gratified when Gabe makes a purring noise, low, so Joe can feel it.

He never does really sleep, even if he drifts off again. Gabe finds what he really wants—Joe's mouth—and kisses him and kisses him, and Joe skates just on the edge of something lucid. He could care more. Gabe's mouth is soft and warm, the closest thing to a long summer evening, and Joe parts his lips to it.

It's full-dark by the time Gabe shakes him back to the world of the waking.

"I'm hungry, c'mon."

The thought of the bitter cold world is nothing short of abhorrent. Joe protests with a grunt.

"Come _on_."

Gabe squirms, and pushes Joe onto his back, and just like that the blankets slip loose, and cool air kisses Joe's shoulders, and sternum, and the ridges of his shoulder blades. Gabe works his way to his feet, not waiting for Joe to complain.

"Let's go." He offers Joe his hand. "It'll be worth it. And there's a set going up in The Cavern tonight, and I wanna get wasted."

That smile again, sharp as broken glass. Joe thinks _daybreak_ and lets Gabe pull him to his feet.

-

The world ended when they were just babies. The Cold War stayed cold, but let's not forget: MADness is the mother of all invention. Biological warfare was a whole different game.

They don't remember that part; they were born too late. They picked up the stories from adults about what it was like. People dying, and dying. Everywhere. What's left on the North American continent: five countries, south of what used to be Canada. Wars over water, religion, and race. Wars over propaganda.

Most of the dying was over by the time they came into the world, even if most of the fighting isn't.

No one's really starving anymore; it's just that nothing's all that good, either.

Huddle in your Constructivist high-rise.

Wait for summer.

Live for the brief, beautiful moments that don't last.

-

The noodle place makes everything—even the noodles—from scratch, on order. Authentic. Or that's what Joe has been led to believe, by people who presumably know more about this particular culinary inquiry than he does. He has no point of comparison.

Authentic or no, the noodles come in a hot broth, and it makes him feel better about having trudged through the biting night to get here. Gabe was right about that. He fishes the long loops out of their soup and lets them hang over the chopsticks to cool. He watches Gabe's hands through the steaming veil.

The backs of Gabe's knuckles have gone all mottled red and blue and purple. The aftermath of something stupid—playwrestling on concrete, probably. Joe wants to set the noodles down again, take Gabe's hand, and smooth his thumbs over those twilight stains. He wants to put his mouth on the little patches of scabbed-over skin, swallow the scabs, and taste what's fresh underneath them. It might be fun, he thinks, to do it without warning.

It _would_ be fun, without a doubt, if it got Gabe to hiss, or flinch. A reflex catching Joe's lip between knuckles and teeth. Ripping red.

Joe just eats his food.

Back out in the night, his mouth, still soaked-over with the spicy feeling, glows like a deep, violet wound. Gabe slings one arm around his shoulders. He wears dogtags—who knows where he got them—and they clack against his chest. Joe can see them because Gabe hasn't bothered to close up his coat, leaving his throat and his collarbones winged open to the cold.

"I know a shortcut," he says.

Joe huffs. "It's like five blocks away."

Gabe does something stupid; nips at his earlobe. "This way's an adventure."

It probably isn't, and Joe already knows every route to The Cavern anyway, but even fake adventures are fun. They make for good stories later.

He squares his shoulders. "Lead the way, Saporta."

Gabe sets off, a long, pretty shadow, twisting through the night.

-

Gabe lives in the same complex as Joe, four floors up—but that's not really why Joe knows him.

Two years ago, in June:

In the basement of a decommissioned factory, the tips of his thumb and his forefinger bleed. A burst callous or two, oozing now, and he sucks at one of them, lathing the quick of his nailbed while he's at it.

The second set on the stage tonight puts on a good show, even if the stage itself is really more like a dais, barely three feet off the floor. The guys—and it's only three of them—thrash like it's their last day on earth; the whole basement thrums because of them.

At what passes for a bar, Joe leans his elbows on the gritty countertop and decides he likes what the band has going on. Gabe, whose name he knows because Joe has friends who might be friends with Gabe's friends (or just because he's seen Pete with Gabe, because Pete's friends with everybody, and probably drunkenly introduced them more than once) settles onto the stool at his side.

"The guitarist, right? In the last set?"

Joe licks one last time at the pad of his thumb. "Something like that."

The bleeding's stopped; now he only tastes a little bit of dirt and salt. Gabe grins a grin that lights up his eyes, even here in the basement's dimness.

"You're good."

"You know about good?"

"I know enough."

Joe likes the slant of that grin, and recalls having liked it the first few times he saw it. Again, in passing. Overlapping circles of friends. "Gabe, right?"

"Joe Trohman," Gabe observes. "A round on me?"

He's pretty in the summertime, in a way that's different from the winter, even though Joe doesn't know this yet. He wears a cutoff shirt that hangs a little too loose on his shoulders and he's damp at his temples. Sweaty because of the season, and even the basement is hot with this many people in it. It lends him an amatory look.

Joe watches Gabe's mouth, just for one beat. "What do you drink?"

"Whatever you want."

-

They aren't that young, but they're not quite _adults_ yet, either. Stuck in the liminal space between adolescence and something else—except they, like the generation before them, don't expect to live to see what comes next.

People older than them talk about a place that used to exist. _The United States of America_. Grown ups remember it; to everyone else, it's just a story. And not even a very good one. 

-

The Cavern isn't really a cavern, of course. It's just what's left of an old church. A hollowed out hull that reminds Joe of a foundered boat. No one bothered to tear it down after the second congress of senators agreed that houses of worship were anti-statist, so now it's just a shell.

The bouncer at the door halts them for the sake of just one question: "See any German imports on the way here?"

Joe thinks of Dobermans and grey uniforms. "Nothing tonight."

The bouncer nods. Gabe takes Joe's hand. The bouncer notices that, too, but he's not the sort to care. He pushes the door open for them.

Inside: the stunning press of sound. The work of some DJ, or some several DJs maybe, because this place is too big for a band to fill, even with amps. People slur around the bar, and others crowd down by the nave. Gabe tugs Joe in the direction of the drinks.

It's familiar, the way most of their lives are familiar. The ramshackle bar, the shitty alcohol. The seething press of people that he mostly recognizes, and the jerry-rigged sound system blasting a thrumming bass beat over everything.

 _A fight night,_ one of the DJs crows. _Call it practice for the Stasi pigs. You know the drill. Bleed a little. Hurt a lot. And never let them take you alive._

Gabe reaches over the bar to get the bartender's attention. Vodka shots because it's what they have. And because shitty vodka trumps shitty beer, at least tonight when Joe wants to feel warm and a little weightless. Beyond the bar, the dancing gives way to something else—people circling out. Cheering.

Fight night indeed.

Joe watches with idle interest, even though he can't see much beyond the rhythm of the bystanders. How they shout, and lurch, and hiss. He was never much for religion, but he likes this. Here. He likes the upending of what this place used to be, maybe because it wasn't ever his, and because—and he knows this history, inside and out— _this place_ used to belong to people who wouldn't have wanted him here anyway.

Human blood on the floor. Call it payback.

On the colonnade on the second floor, other people, entirely indifferent to the bloodsport, keep dancing.

He knocks back his second shot and grimaces because it burns on the way down. Someone in the crowd cheers again and when Gabe's fingers brush the back of his neck, he shivers.

"I wanna see," Gabe shouts, over the music—by which he means: he wants to do something reckless.

Joe looks at him and tips his shot glass on its edge. He's warmer now. He could get _hot_ , thrown into the press of the crowd.

"Okay."

And when Gabe withdraws his hand, his thumb brushes the corner of Joe's jaw.

-

Not too many people have stories about what the scene used to be like in America. Maybe because _the scene_ didn't exist—or because, like the rest of America, the concept of that scene doesn't make much sense anymore.

Nothing to talk about.

Now, the fights go with the music, hand-in-glove. A different twist on the thrill, if you sign up for it. When the sets finish and the DJs take the stage, the pits give way to pit fights and a person can dive into adrenaline one more time before the night's over. Synthetic, bone-deep bass; real blood.

Everyone always looks kind of pretty after that, spitting pink.

The last light of youth, cavorting off into the night.

-

People make bets tonight, but that's nothing new. It feels better, to walk away with winnings, even if the winnings add up to a fifth of whiskey or someone's uncle's old watch that doesn't work.

"Hold my coat," Gabe says. "And these."

He deposits the dogtags in Joe's open hand. Joe tugs them over his hair, onto his own neck. The chain's still warm.

One kid in the not-ring wrestles the other to the ground. Gets him in a chokehold. People shout, and shriek, and there's a tap-out, and then more shrieking after that. The DJ kills the music while onlookers cheer both guys out of the ring.

 _C'mon,_ the DJ urges while the music lulls. _Any other volunteers? The night is for the young and reckless._

Gabe steps through the crowd and the people who recognize him whoop and holler. He catches Joe's eye one last time, not quite smirking.

Joe just arches one eyebrow, as if to say: well then? Give them a good show.

-

Here's the state of this world, in so many words: four borders, five countries. Most, except the Republic of Texarkana, ally with what's left of Stalinism and what grew out of it. Long live the German Democratic Republic, the older people say, sounding bitter about it.

Everyone else just gets on with things.

Censorship. The Statsi— _German imports_ , as people like call them (there are other, less generous names, too. Everyone's more careful about where they say those).

And of course, the long list of enemies of the state.

There's no fighting the military machinations of a superstructure that abhors you.

So slip underground. Scream where they aren't listening. Bleed a little, because catharsis helps, even if it doesn't change anything.

-

Eight months ago:

Gabe speaks without filter when he's drunk—and right now, he's very drunk.

"You worry so much, did you know that?" he says to Patrick. "You're so small. How do you worry this much?"

Patrick makes a face and tugs Gabe's sticky freezer open in search of ice cubes. Joe just sits with Gabe's head in his lap, watching the place where his jaw swells, all down the left arc.

Gabe played his whole set this way, drunk and reckless. And then he jumped off the stage, but not before he got his bass off. The neck bashed him under his jaw and chin and the body clapped his ribs. He bit his tongue, too—hard. He spat red more than once, while Patrick and Joe helped him back to his flat.

"You're staring at me," Gabe remarks. His words slur just a little.

"You're hurt."

"'M fine." He moves like he's going to roll over, but his jaw presses on Joe's thigh and he hisses.

"Fine?" Joe brushes the backs of his fingers against the swelling and Gabe hisses again.

"I _am_ ," Gabe insists, his eyes fluttering. "Don't make me move. I like it here, like this."

It'll be a spectacular bruise, come morning. He split the skin, just along the line of his jawbone. Not an insignificant cut, either; looking at it, Joe thinks he's lucky that it's shallow. Ugly, and red, and ragged—but just leaking plasma now, clearer than blood. A little string of runny crystals.

"You like this," Gabe carries on, catching Joe watching him again. He grins, and the stretch splits the plasma crust; fresh blood blooms in its place. "Fucking all fucked up. Pervert."

That may be true, but it's not very complete. Joe doesn't bother to correct him. He just bumps his knuckles against tender skin and Gabe _'ah!'_ s and when Joe draws his hand away, he takes a little splash of crimson with him.

"Quiet," he says.

Patrick returns with the ice—two separate packs really just amounting to crushed cubes wrapped in stained but clean hand towels. And what looks like a slightly abused flower vase, full of water.

"You need to drink something," he advises.

"I already drank a lot of something," Gabe smirks. It splits the newly congealed blood again, and he winces. "Ow—fuck."

Patrick huffs and passes one of the ice packs to Joe. "Your bass isn't so banged up." He presses the other ice pack to Gabe's ribs. "I can probably fix it. Hold that wherever it hurts."

Gabe _mm_ 's and Joe holds the ice to his jaw, and listens for the way Gabe sucks his breath in between his teeth.

"You good?" Patrick asks.

Joe assures him that they are, and they part with a _see you soon_ and the sound of Patrick shouldering Gabe's bass out the door.

It's quiet after that, until Joe coaxes Gabe to sit up, at which point Gabe complains extensively. Joe ignores it. He needs to gather swabs to clean the cut, get Gabe to drink the water. There's no ethanol in the kitchen or the bathroom, so Gabe's last fingers of gin will have to do.

"Chin up," he orders, once Gabe has downed most of the water.

The blood cracks for a third time. Joe has to pick the flakes away. Gabe doesn't complain, but his breath hitches now and again, and his blood gets under Joe's nails. Joe likes it; all of it. It leaves his fingers slippery and warm.

He's careful with that hand, when it comes to dabbing the cut clean. He doesn't let the gin get on those stained fingers.

Gabe looks at him again, his pupils blown wide. The city lights filter like little strings through his window's sheer curtains and catch, in a glistening spray, on his mouth where it's still damp from the water. He licks his lips, and smirks again, but gingerly this time. His hand, when it cups Joe's cheek, is dry, calloused, and warm.

The room, this high up in the summertime, is very hot.

"You're a freak, Trohman."

The deep, dark wells of his eyes. Joe presses the backs of his bloodied fingers to Gabe's mouth.

"Quiet."

Gabe's eyelashes shiver. He parts his lips and licks Joe's fingers clean.

-

Violence has a taste.

It's in the air now, and Joe opens his mouth a little, just to feel it on the back of his tongue while Gabe lunges at the other guy in the would-be ring.

Why the pit fights in the first place?

Why not.

Gabe gets his arms around the other guy's waist, and they go crashing down, tangled and grappling. Joe catches sight of Pete across the pit, shouting as loud as the rest of them. Tossing a soggy bill or two into the ring. Winner takes all.

The other guy flips, gets Gabe on his back. A breath lost to a gasp that Joe feels, even if he can't quite hear it. He has Gabe's coat and his own slung around his shoulders and the other guy knocks the wind out of Gabe for a second time. One forearm bashed against a sternum.

Everything reeks.

Joe sucks his bottom lip between his teeth.

There's no real finesse to any of this. It's not an art form consolidated by any unifying technique. Gabe moves the way he moves, and other guys and other girls move the way move and the trick is figuring out, without any leading information, how to win by improvising.

Gabe gets one arm around the other guy's neck, pulls him close. They scramble, tussle, the guy's face pressed to Gabe's throat. Joe catches a flash of bloodied elbows. Probably the work of shattered tile. Gabe laughs, twists, and gets the guy facedown, one knee pressed to the small of his back.

The crowd shouts and shouts for more.

Gabe's hair, gone all stringy, sticks to his face.

There are rules here: no direct punches, kicks, or jabs—particularly no headshots, and nothing at the groin. No throws. People want a scene, not an instant KO. So it comes down to grappling and grabbing, but that doesn't bar anything like backhands, chokes, submission holds, and forearm strikes. What's a scene without a little drama?

The guy bucks, unbalances Gabe, and in one neat motion twists enough to clap him, hard. Knuckles across his mouth. Someone jostles Joe in the excitement but Joe keeps his footing, watching Gabe spit and lunge again.

The vodka has Joe in full-effect, now. He feels loose, even watching this. Gabe topples them both and something pulses in Joe's wrists, in time with the thud of them hitting the ground. And while they scrabble, grab, and cut themselves on broken tile, a dark, hot feeling pools low in his gut. Stains down to his groin.

-

That same night, two years ago, he lets Gabe buy them the drinks. It's not really about what Joe wants, so much as it's about what the bartends have—but that's the way it always goes. Four tumblers arrive, full of something thin and amber and astringent. Joe downs the first one in one go, it tastes that bad.

After the second round, Gabe licks the rim of his glass. He's pretty, Joe notices again, and Gabe notices him noticing.

"You going anywhere after this?"

Gabe has to lean close to be heard over the music, but maybe not _this_ close. Torsos, flush, and one hand feathered at Joe's elbow.

"Maybe." He doesn't shout it. He lets his mouth brush the shell of Gabe's ear. "But I'm not going anywhere right now."

Gabe's hand goes tight. The vanishing of all pretense.

"Come with me."

They disappear together into a blackwashed bathroom with graffiti all over the broken mirror. Joe finds a piece of that shattered glass on the sill of the sink, and wedges it under the washroom door. Kicks it, until it sticks in place. He wants something, and he wants it right now, and he's not going to get interrupted.

Gabe just smiles at him, desultory. "Thinking ahead."

"You'd rather get blueballed?"

The soft scuff of his laugh, raspy and hungry, lurches through Joe.

"Never."

Joe shoves him against the wall. "Then shut up."

The music thrums through the door. In the dim light, Gabe looks a little wild. Joe kisses him once, for good measure, and then drops to his knees, pushing Gabe's shirt up enough to suck and kiss at the thin band of his belly, just above his jeans.

Gabe makes a soft sound.

Joe's good at this, he knows, and when he gets Gabe's jeans open, he's greeted with the sight of no underwear, and a huge, ugly bruise spilling over Gabe's hip. He thumbs over it.

"Rough night?"

Gabe's laugh sounds a little like it's stuck in the back of his throat. "Just a stupid one."

Joe _mm_ 's, kisses the bruise too, and drags his teeth over it to make Gabe hiss. Under his knees, the damp floor wets his jeans. When he looks up, Gabe looks back at him, face faintly flushed, mouth parted just a little. Joe shows a cut of teeth, just barely a grin, and then ducks his head again to swallow all of what Gabe offers him.

-

Gabe doesn't win the fight, but winning isn't really the point. The other guy gets him splayed face-down on the ground, one arm twisted in a brutal gesture behind his back. Gabe writhes until the guy catches his hair and grinds his cheek against the cold, broken tile. Then he taps out.

Cheering and jeering, people toss more coins and fight over who won what bet this time. The winning man scoops up his meager prize. He and Gabe part amicably, the DJ doling out lightly sniping comments at both of them.

Even in the gloom, Joe sees dark muck on the floor—splattered, swooped, and spiraled.

Gabe finds him, radiant with the thrill of brutality. Mouth running, nose running, he grabs Joe's arm. A gash, above his eyebrow, bleeds a dark crescent down his eye socket.

"You're an idiot," Joe shouts to him, over the bustle and the noise.

Gabe presses close. The wet on his face, blood and spit and sweat, slicks Joe's cheek. He doesn't even argue Joe's point, just works his fingers under the collar of both coats and drags a sloppy kiss over Joe's cheekbone.

He split his lip. This close, Joe thinks of twisting to kiss it. To suck it hard.

"Come dance with me," Gabe directs.

"You need to sit down."

And it's true, he does. Joe knows from experience. Even if he isn't really hurt, he's scraped and bruised and cut on more than just his brow and lip. It's stupid not to look after those things. But then—the fighting's stupid in the first place. Gabe presses closer, strung high and taut.

"I'm not done yet."

Joe gets him by the waist. The beater's torn, somewhere, and wet with sweat, and sticking to Gabe all over. He's solid under Joe's touch. Messy. They can leave the hurts for later; stuff the the coats into some corner, and hope no one else takes them. He does kiss Gabe, then, because he can. Gabe makes a short, low sound.

"C'mon," Joe urges, his thoughts coalescing into vague but revelatory shadows.

Damp things; wet things; lush things. The drinks have him feeling fevered.

He kisses Gabe one more time, harder than he did before, and they step away from the ring, into the press of each other and the music.

-

Enemies of the state.

Who are they?

Some people dimly recall what Stalin called 'counterrevolutionaries.'

They're past the days of death camps, but it doesn't matter much. If it comes down to murder, who'll stop the Stasi?

Keep your head down.

Summer will come again; it'll be beautiful, even if it's not any safer. Love what you can love while you have the chance to love it.

-

A different memory, a year old:

Joe wins a pit fight of his own—and walks out sore and bloodied, with his meager winnings stuffed in his pockets. It's not the first fight that he's won, and it won't be the last, but he bashed his knee in the middle of the grappling. Now a shooting pain flash-fire-snaps up his marrow every time he takes a step even though he's faintly drunk. It means Gabe has to press close to his side and keep one arm around his waist to make the walking easier while they stomp through the snow.

His touch soothes the electric pull in Joe's gut, the thing that makes him want to find a stage again. Make loud music. Throw himself around more, until he can't, until his legs give out under him, even though his legs feel like they're going to give out on him right now.

There isn't enough of a party left to make music for, anyway. Not at this hour of the night, or the almost-morning.

He limps on and catalogues the unsubtle way Gabe's fingers curl at his hip. He thinks of how to spend his small clutch of fresh-won cash.

Not books. Gabe has a considerable number of those. So many that Joe stopped trudging to the library to find things to read. He isn't sure where Gabe got them all, but he _is_ sure that Gabe's probably not supposed to have some of them. Those ones, the probably-banned ones, smell a little musty, and their pages feel like autumn leaves. Ready to crumple. Joe likes to lie on Gabe's couch and page through them, not really reading so much as he is taking in the feel of something. An excavation in search of a different era, known only by way of texture.

So yes, no books.

Booze, maybe; the good kind is hard to come by. He thinks of sharing it with Gabe, gold whiskey, and of the face Gabe might make while he savors it. He thinks: _that would be nice_ —and is surprised at himself for thinking these things. He isn't sure when Gabe's languor, or the way he looks when he gives in to it, started to matter.

"Hey." Gabe's arm tightens around his waist. "You okay?"

He'd slipped a little. The hard packed-snow has gone icy under the most recent dusting. His knee throbs.

"I'm good," he reassures.

It's true, even though he hurts. It _feels_ true. He's dizzy and invincible and something brutal simmers in his veins. They pass beneath streetlamps and through pools of cold, bluing light, and all he wants is a bloodletting. Steam rising hot from the garnet runoff. He's restless.

So he noses at Gabe, chasing a taste he can't quite get because Gabe's jacket's in the way.

"Hey," Gabe says again. He catches Joe gently by the jaw. "Not out here. Let's get back first."

He's beautiful, Joe thinks. Underfed, and heartbroken, because this is as good as it gets, and beautiful nonetheless. He tells himself he can wait.

It turns out to be true.

In Gabe's flat, he complains because Gabe makes him lie back while he strips Joe's jeans off and packs ice around his knee. He wants Gabe closer. His knee doesn't matter now; he waited the whole walk here. He tugs at Gabe's shoulder.

"I'm good, really. C'mere."

Gabe accedes, careful of Joe's knee when Joe pulls him close enough to kiss. He's drunk too, Joe tastes it on his breath, and they're both reckless and sloppy like this. Gabe's kisses turn raw. When he works a hand down the front of Joe's underwear, Joe twists his head, finds bare skin, and bites hard.

A stunning spasm.

Gabe flinches away, hissing, and looks down at Joe. He keeps his mattress on the floor, which means his piles and piles of books loom all around them, like weird columns. Joe reaches up to touch Gabe's face, tasting salt on the back of his tongue. He doesn't look away.

"Fuck, Trohman," Gabe breathes.

Joe doesn't know precisely what part of this has earned a _fuck_. But it stops mattering when Gabe touches him where he aches again and bares his own, bitten neck again, leaving room for Joe to suck on ruined skin until he swallows more than just spit and sweat. Until he slakes something here in the quiet shadows, where no one else can see.

-

This is the kingdom they live in, except no one calls it a kingdom.

The Union of the Northern Socialist States.

The name sounds nice, at least.

-

In a dark corner on The Cavern's second floor, Joe gets one leg between Gabe's and holds fast to his hips. They're dancing, for a given value of dancing, but Gabe's all shivery, like he's either cold or hurting. Still, he licks into Joe's mouth and rocks against him, and Joe pulls him that much closer, slipping fingers under the damp beater to feel where sweat pools at the small of his back.

Outside, the world drowses through winter's frigid grip. Tonight, tomorrow, or the next day, a Stasi officer will liquidate a life that, in all likelihood, probably doesn't look so very different from Joe's own. In the grey, grey morning, the they'll watch another story on the news: more bodies in the DMZ, more people dead trying to get across the borderlands.

It's nothing special. Nothing new.

And any of those futures could come for them.

So he curves the fingers of his free hand against Gabe's jaw. When he hitches his leg a little higher, Gabe shudders, exhales, and all those futures flake away. Gabe slips against him, briefly unbalanced.

Joe catches him. "You good?"

"Sore."

His dark mouth and his darker eyes. Joe cups the base of his skull, and lets Gabe lean into him, still shivery. His hair curls over Joe's fingers.

Gliding his knuckles down the back of Gabe's neck, Joe thinks _yes, it's this_ , and that's enough.

"Let's go."

Gabe doesn't argue this time.

They do this a lot, Joe realizes. Carry each other home. It's not surprising—no one else is going to look after them. It's part of how he fell in with Pete, and Andy, and Patrick. It's not exactly part of how he fell in with Gabe, but now Gabe's part of the thing in itself, and the enormity of that fact is staggering.

They muck through snow and slush and go to lengths to look only like two men touching because one of them is hurt. A necessity uncoupled from desire. Because there can be no desire, even though Gabe kissed Joe's ear, out here in the street for anyone to see, just a few chilly hours ago.

Neither one of them was hurt too much to run, then.

He gets them back—his flat. Because there are fewer stairs to climb. In the clear, aseptic bathroom light he can see:

The thick, garnet-crystalled cut over Gabe's brow. How his lower lip swells, not badly, but very split and very red.

He has scrapes all over his left cheek, where he got his face shoved into the floor, and long, weird welts down his throat. Joe felt those with his mouth, but they look so lurid now that he can see them.

And everywhere else: bruises or soon-to-be bruises. His shoulder. His ribs, when Joe works the beater off. Probably on his tailbone too. Add that to a skinned elbow and a twisted ankle and a long, ugly, caked-over rift just on the inside of one shoulder blade.

"Jesus."

Sitting on the edge of the tub, Gabe wheezes a laugh, then flinches when Joe touches the cut.

"That bad?" he drawls.

Little flakes of dried blood come away when Joe lifts his hand. Those nascent bruises bloom in weird, dark red deltas all down Gabe's back. Joe traces how his ribs swoop, and Gabe flinches again.

"Stand up," he directs, softly. Gabe does, just enough for Joe to work his jeans off too. The light over the sink blinkers intermittently. "You need an ice bath."

Gabe winces, laughs, and winces again. "I need another drink."

Joe passes one hand up the inside of his thigh. Squeezes, light as anything, where a different bruise blossoms, like water spilled just under skin. Gabe hisses.

"Bath first," he cedes.

Joe thumbs, very gently, at the crease of his groin. "Just. Stay here. I'll be back."

Gabe grips the edge of the tub, and Joe notices that his knuckles, the already bruised ones, have split open again. He kisses Gabe's hair, once, and goes.

Ice, at least, isn't very hard to come by. Squat little corner stores offer it up at all hours of the day, no matter the season. He throws down three crumpled bills and the grumpy old man on the third shift takes them without a word. The bags are cold in his hands in the even colder night and he preemptively pities Gabe for this particular remedy.

They'll make it better, later.

Back in the flat, Gabe already ran cool water, getting the tub three-quarters full. He still sits on the edge, dragging his fingers in the water, and Joe thinks of how cold he was just this afternoon. The pale tips of his fingers. He'll kiss them, he decides. Remind his pretty bones of some other place, where everything's warm.

Gabe cuts him a look.

"This is gonna be a bitch."

Joe shrugs out of his coat, rips the first bag of ice open, and dumps it into the bath. "Yeah."

The other follows. Gabe grips Joe's shoulder and sinks into the water, gasping like someone gut-punched him.

"Fucking _fuck_."

Joe pushes Gabe's hair back from his face. "I know."

They don't say much after that. Joe cups water cold enough to numb his hands, and spills it with care over Gabe's face. Cleans the slice on his brow, and the scrapes on his cheek. Then picks the gash on his back clean, and Gabe presses his face to Joe's hip and shivers so hard every breath sounds like he's sobbing.

Joe wants to say _I'm sorry_ even though he isn't—or he isn't for this thing, specifically. Sometimes he's a little bit sorry that he likes it so much.

He cups more water over him, his own fingers going white. The bath darkens with whorls of dirt and tiny, crystalloid bits of blood.

"How did you not notice this?" he asks, thumbing over the trench in Gabe's back.

"Dunno." Gabe grips at him. "Having too much fun."

Joe traces where he can see Gabe's veins, netted blue and purple just beneath his skin. Lichtenberg figures. He read about those, too—probably in a book Gabe had. Some compendium of teratology, freak phenomena, and grotesqueries. He remembers thinking that the people in the pictures, struck by bolts of lightning, looked very lovely.

Lightning never struck Gabe, but the spread of his veins makes it look like it did. Joe imagines kissing those patterns; imagines that they'll stain his lips with the same, reticulate lacework. A map, pointing him in no particular direction.

He washes more water over the cut. "How's your ankle?"

"I can't fucking feel it."

Joe watches the flex and spasm of the muscles in his back. Touches the long gash one more time. Gabe's too cold for it to bleed, really, but it still feels special. Bright and damp and unhealed.

"Here. Hold my arm."

He helps Gabe stand and then has to hitch to catch him when he almost slips. Freezing water sloshes out of the tub, and now they're both wet with it. Gabe clings. Joe guides him out of the bath, listening to the ice clink out glassy sounds when it spills onto the floor.

"You're such a fucking sadist," Gabe breathes.

But he says it without rancor, his forehead rested on Joe's shoulder. His hair coils in cold, wet curls against the back of his neck. Joe fumbles for a towel and dries him with vigor.

"Sit."

He wraps the towel tight, guiding Gabe to settle on the toilet lid. It takes a bit of time to drain the tub and melt the ice, even with warm water running. So Joe fishes rubbing alcohol from under the sink, finds a washcloth, and sets to flushing the cuts clean with more than just water. Gabe shivers. He watches Joe with a look that recalls a vicious ritual, heard and felt, but never quite seen.

The alcohol stings the cuts back to life. Gabe bleeds from his brow.

"You think I'm pretty like this?" he asks, only just this side of acerbic.

Joe thumbs the thin rivulet of blood snaking its way down his face. Smears it, paintlike, over Gabe's cheek. His thumb catches on the scrapes there, and pulls at the skin.

"Yes."

Gabe grins a little wider, still shaking like he'll never be warm again. "You're sick."

Joe presses on his busted-up lip. "So are you."

Gabe opens his mouth to suck at the red and at Joe's thumb until Joe leans close and kisses him, chasing the sticky taste. The towel slips a little when Gabe lets it go to curl his fingers in the chain around Joe's neck. His dogtags, forgotten until this moment. He gives them a short tug, still shivering. They chime silver.

"Yeah?" Joe breathes.

"Yeah."

Joe kisses him one more time. Then—the soft stagger to the bedroom. It's really the only other part of the flat that's separate from everything, the bathroom notwithstanding. It's warmer in here, but still not very warm. Joe's feet are a little numb from standing in the cold water. Gabe shivers.

"Come," Joe says.

He holds Gabe close. Mouths at his neck. He towels Gabe's hair dry some more, runs his hands through it, and thinks of arcs of starlit glass. Translucent bone; glowing hearts. A made up place, but also this place, right here, with Gabe fumbling to get Joe's jeans off.

They should have warmed him more. They should wrap his hurt ankle.

They do neither, and Joe shucks the jeans himself.

On the lumpy mattress not quite meant for two, he licks at the whorls he painted on Gabe's face and bites at Gabe's lip. Gabe sighs under him, still cool to the touch. Cold fingers slip under Joe's shirt. When Gabe moves to sit up, he inadvertently gives Joe his earlier, fleeting wish. The kiss is too rough; teeth catch. The tissue inside Joe's lip splits open and it's not quite enough, but his stomach thrills anyway.

Gabe props himself up on hurt elbows, a little breathless, his hair falling back from his face. Joe aches and aches, and doesn't want it to stop. So he kisses Gabe again and slips one palm up his back until he finds the long slash. Things for which he has no words cluster in shards against the back of his teeth.

Invent a language.

He rakes his ragged nails into skin. Gabe spasms, his whimper clotting between their mouths. Joe digs his fingers deeper.

Maybe he really should be sorry.

Maybe they really are sick.

Who's to say?

Gabe arches into him, gasping, and all Joe tastes is something dark and thick, and not at all like penance.

"Joe." A murmur.

"Mm?"

He sits back a little, to take stock, but Gabe just rests his head against the hollow between Joe's neck and shoulder. His eyelashes flutter; Joe feels them. Little kisses.

Gabe breathes.

"Nothing."

Joe tugs the cut, just to feel the way Gabe's breath pops, and then sits further back, enough to flip him.

"Here. On your knees."

He doesn't mean it as dirty talk. Dirty talk isn't really his thing. It's just a direction, but Gabe shivers like it's something more. Joe has to steady him at the waist, so they're both kneeling, but not quite leaning into each other. Gabe's still very cold—but maybe just a little less so than he was before. Joe kisses his glistening hair and then drags one hand through the smear on his back to make it run again. Gabe's breath quavers.

Pull him close. Brace one arm around his chest. His blood leaks between them—Joe feels that heat blossom through his sternum, and then farther back, til it reaches his spine. He holds still.

"Taking pity?" Gabe teases.

"Maybe."

Gabe writhes a bit. The slashed skin drags on Joe's shirt and bubbles fresh. "You can't fool me."

Joe knows that things like this are dangerous. Bacteria, infections, blood-sicknesses. He's not confused. But they're the generation singing and dancing and screaming in places where they shouldn't. They fight for sport, because there's nothing better to do. It's stupid, but their world makes no promises.

He slips his hand, the messy one, over Gabe's mouth. "Quiet."

And he aches all over again when Gabe licks at the wells of his fingers. Sucks those fingers into his mouth. Joe tips him forward just enough, and he makes a soft, choked sound, maybe because Joe's other arm presses too hard on a banged-up rib.

Joe kisses the back of his neck. "Sorry."

But Gabe just hums, garbled.

It's good, the way all of Gabe is good.

It's the thing he wants, which is: Gabe. Shuddering and lovely. Joe ducks his head to lick into that gash on his back; taste vermilion; grow slick all over his face. Gabe sucks harder at his fingers, groans, and Joe tastes that too and bites down, hungry for the ruin. This heavy redness, this jeweled thing, slimes and thickens in the corners of his mouth. Gabe's spit strings around his fingers.

The night washes everything else away.

**Author's Note:**

> credit to sasha banks' "uhmareka, collapse: two" for the title.


End file.
